NSW Election 2023: Latham says 1.8 per cent vote is a good result
One Nation looks to have commanded just a fraction of the vote at the polls on Saturday— but NSW leader Mark Latham says he isn’t worried by his party’s performance. Here’s why.
State Election
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The NSW One Nation leader Mark Latham has shrugged off what polls suggested is a disappointing result for his party, saying it was “a solid result on a day in which Labor swept to power.”
“The early Legislative Council vote has us in a better position than four years ago, but that vote will change over the next fortnight” as counting continues, Mr Latham said.
“Four years ago we had just two seats with more than 10 per cent of the primary vote, and now we have eight.”
“That’s definitely an improvement.”
“If we wind up with two more seats in the (upper house), I’ll be pleased.”
Before counting resumed on Monday, One Nation was tipped to have garnered 1.8 per cent of the vote across NSW.
Mr Latham’s party had been tipped to make a strong performance on the day off the back of a plan to run as many as 20 candidates in lower house seats to take advantage of voter disaffection with the major parties.
However those ambitions shrank as the party failed to field candidates for high profile seats such as Goulburn, where polls suggested the party might have picked up as much as 15 per cent of the vote.
As electoral officials prepared to resume counting Monday, Mr Latham said he was hoping to bring in new members to the upper house, including former Bankstown Labor MP Tania Mihailuk, who spectacularly left her old party in January.
NSW Labor, she said at the time, had “lost its way to the left wing extremists and property developer mafia”.
“Chris Minns as Premier and a Labor Government will see NSW go both woke and broke,” she added.
Mr Latham also left no doubt as to where the blame lay for the government’s loss.
“Matt Kean deserted the conservative western Sydney base and we filled it,” he said.
“Kean destroyed the government.”
Mr Latham has long been one of the outgoing NSW treasurer and energy minister’s harshest critics, blaming his climate policies for hurting working families and damaging the fortunes of the state’s economy.
Last Sunday, Mr Latham declared that if his party had won enough seats to hold the balance of power in parliament, he would not do a deal with the Perrottet government if Mr Kean were part of it.
Mr Latham’s party was not the only minor party to fall short of expectations, with teal independents backed by the Climate 200 group failing to secure a seat in the lower house.
LATHAM SAYS VOTERS WILL PUNISH LIBS FOR KEAN
The defining issue of the state election, according to One Nation NSW leader Mark Latham, is simple.
“Matt Kean.”
Mr Latham, the political firebrand whose party could become a crucial voting bloc in the upper house, is expecting a strong result for One Nation at Saturday’s election.
The party is running in 17 lower house seats. Some industry polling, and political insiders, believe it will draw strong support in a number of crucial Western Sydney seats, including Leppington and Camden.
Mr Latham said conservative voters would punish the Coalition for policies overseen by Treasurer Matt Kean.
“His green energy plan has been a disaster, driving up electricity bills and, as Treasurer, he’s got the state buried in debt,” Mr Latham said.
“So he’s got two massive policy failures and has betrayed the Liberal Party base that don’t want to support someone from the green-left.”
Speaking to The Daily Telegraph ahead of handing out flyers at a pre-poll centre in Camden, Mr Latham said support for One Nation candidate Trevor Dollin in the crucial southwest Sydney seat was strong.
“We got 14 per cent there last time. It was our highest vote in the state,” he said.
“All the feedback we get from people is that we’re a mile ahead of where we were four years ago.”
Camden is held by Liberal Peter Sidgreaves on a margin of 7.4 per cent.
Mr Sidgreaves is from the dominant left faction of the Liberal Party, run by Mr Kean.
In response to Mr Latham, Mr Kean said: “Mark Latham once described climate sceptics as ‘dangerous ideologues … devoid of reason and intellectual substance’, he said men ‘use domestic violence as a coping mechanism’, he intimidated a female swimming instructor (and) broke a taxi driver’s arm”.
While One Nation is unlikely to win any lower house seats, support for the party could end up helping Labor form government if disaffected conservatives flee the Liberals.
“That is not our concern, or intent,” Mr Latham said.
Where One Nation could end up having the most impact is in the upper house, where the party is likely to end up with at least four members.
Mr Latham technically quit parliament halfway through his eight-year term last year to run again at the top of the ballot paper.
Based on last election’s results, the party is expected to get enough votes to return Mr Latham to parliament and elect Labor defector Tania Mihailuk, who is second on the ticket.
The position Mr Latham resigned from will then be filled by the party.
Mr Latham said if elected his MPs would look at legislation on its merits, but slammed Dominic Perrottet for failing to lift vaccine mandates on frontline workers.
He said the Premier had promised to lift the mandates in exchange for One Nation supporting stamp duty reform.
“What’s the point in doing a deal with a bloke who broke the last one,” he said.
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